Woodstock Site May Go On Epa List

Decades after two Woodstock typewriter companies closed, the dumping ground for their garbage, plus years of trash from various other sources, has become a matter of environmental concern.

The 40- to 50-acre dump site, which later became the Woodstock Municipal Landfill, has been proposed for membership on the federal

``Superfund`` list as a suspected source of environmental contamination.

Local officials, however, say they don`t know why.

``We assume there is some type of problem or they wouldn`t have taken it to this step,`` said Dennis Anderson, Woodstock city manager. ``I literally found out about it when they (the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) put out a press release.``

City officials said they have no idea if any contamination exists at the landfill, which was the dumping ground for the Woodstock Typewriter Co. and the R.C. Allen Typewriter Co., and later the city dump, until it was closed in 1976.

``It was basically an open dump in the `20s and the `30s and then the city bought it in the 1960s,`` Anderson said. ``In 1979 the (Illinois) EPA certified the closing of the landfill, saying it met all required

environmental rules in existence at that time.``

Since the city closed the dump, officials have been monitoring the water quality of a nearby stream, but Anderson said those tests have shown no contamination.

He said the city has formally requested any documents from state and federal environmental agencies to find out what contamination exists.

But records filed with the Illinois EPA indicate a wide range of metal contaminants that federal officials say could risk the quality of drinking water for city residents.

According to a March, 1985, inspection report, investigators found soil contaminated with cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, nickel and arsenic. Bob Casteel, a state EPA spokesman, said layers of permeable sand and gravel beneath the dump threatens six Woodstock municipal wells.

Inspectors said that 3,000-cubic-yards of nickel-contaminated sludge dumped over a 4-year period from an electroplating plant also has raised safety concerns.

``The main concern is the threat to the aquafiers, which is the source of drinking water in Woodstock,`` Casteel said.

The threat of being placed on the national Superfund list, which could allow the federal government to try to recoup three times the cost of cleanup from the city, prompted the City Council last week to hire T.A. Gleason and Associates of Cincinnati, an environmental consulting firm, to investigate contamination at the dump.

``We`ve taken the aggressive position of finding out just what`s out there,`` Anderson said, ``but we we`re a little disappointed in the process the EPA uses to notify people of a problem.``